Why 81% of You Aren’t Impressed by Windows Mobile 6.5
Yikes! The vast majority of our recent poll participants fell into either the “Not Impressed” or “OK, but not enough progress” categories. Only 19% of you figuratively had your socks knocked off by the incremental upgrade. I’m using the word incremental for a reason here, because it underlies a large part of the challenge that Microsoft is facing. I also believe it has much to do with how folks voted. I think folks are disappointed by what amounts to minimal improvements relative to the time between releases.
Sadly, none of us are going to see new devices running Windows Mobile 6.5 until late this year. That could be nine months from now and yes, it will only be on new devices, which is just silly. Many of the new devices won’t offer much more (if anything) different in terms of hardware capabilities. In cases like that, it sounds like a business decision to sell more Windows Mobile handsets and thus, gain more Windows Mobile license revenue.
So what will we see from the more nimble players in the market between now and then? Even if we saw nothing new from them (highly unlikely), the bar has been raised some time ago and the reaction from Redmond has been slower than an oil tanker making a turn.
Just to put the timeline in perspective here, let’s look at some history of when Microsoft released or announced different Windows Mobile versions. Bear in mind that many devices didn’t see these versions for months after the announcements, if at all:
- Windows Mobile 5 = February of 2005
- Windows Mobile 6 = February of 2007
- Windows Mobile 6.1 = April of 2008
- Windows Mobile 6.5 = February of 2009 announcement, devices in late 2009
- Windows Mobile 7 = expected in 2010
Ultimately, I like what I see in where Windows Mobile 6.5 is heading with a more finger-friendly shell. Should it take this long to develop, test and release incremental improvements, however? James in his recent editorial says no, and I agree. It has that “day late and dollar short” look and feel to me. No doubt that some delays can be attributed to carriers for their testing and customizations. We’ve seen that time and again. But this doesn’t seem to be the main reason for slow progress and evolution.
This sluggishness and other factors are allowing other mobile OS platforms to catch up or even surpass Microsoft. One of our frequent commenters mentions that Windows Mobile devices outsold rival Apple’s iPhone in 2008. I’m not exactly positive that’s the case, as I haven’t seen any numbers for the full year yet. I have seen them for as recent as the third quarter of 2008, and there were more iPhones sold than Windows Mobile devices in that particular time frame. Quibbling over who sold more in a quarter or a year is pointless; the real point here is that it shouldn’t even be close. But it is. A lack of innovation and speed to market has opened up the door for others to own this space. Incremental updates every 18 months or so aren’t going to close it. Here’s wishing luck to Windows Mobile 7.
I’m already anticipating the comments with a list of what a Windows Mobile phone does well and how it has feature X that you folks can’t live without. Hey, I’m sure you’re correct, as the platform is evaluated against your own requirements. And if Windows Mobile 6.5 is going to meet your needs, then that’s the platform you should use. I’m in agreement with you with respect to your needs. Chances are, however, you’ve used Windows Mobile for several years, which isn’t the case for the market at large.
Regardless, the main issue here isn’t how good or bad Windows Mobile is as a platform. That’s an individual choice, as I alluded to above. This is more about Microsoft’s development model with the platform: At one point it was acceptable to be the tortoise, but now the hares are passing by.
After seeing how little 6.5 actually changes anything, resetting my Advantage 3 times this morning for freezing (it just randomly refuses to wake back up), the media player breaking itself (making all WAV and MP3 ringtones and notifications not play) and needing a hard reset to fix, and Nvidia showing Tegra devices running Android, it’s looking less and less likely that my next phone will be a Windows phone. “Simple” synchronization with Outlook and OneNote are seemingly the only things I’ll be giving up, and I’m willing to make that sacrifice.
The WM6.5 looks nice, but not as nice as an iphone, G1, Storm, Nokia S60? or Palm Pre. And I think that is the problem as it stands today. I do not know how the WM6.5 will finally end up. But what I see coming over the horizon looks better.
I think WM6.5 is a bit late, and expectations have increased with the Pre, especially with those great videos. Maybe the WM6.5 needs HTC eye candy.
In case I’m starting to come across as some sort of rabid WinMo fanboy I should point out that I don’t actually own a Windows Mobile phone and have held off buying one for a variety of relations though mostly hardware related
I don’t disagree with most of the commentary related to Windows Mobile and I’m aware that it has its faults. However, it’s not the only phone OS that has major issues. Symbian S60, for instance, suffers from many of the problems that people object to with Windows Mobile – it’s difficult to update, has a less than intuitive UI, can be sluggish, etc. – and yet I never hear anyone complaining about it.
The iPhone is so lacking in many regards that it barely deserves to be called a smartphone and yet it’s held up as the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Similarly, I do think that the objections that James made yesterday could be equally applied to Android in that Google are prepared to give carriers and OEMs a fair bit of leeway in terms of branding. If this is a problem for Microsoft then why isn’t it a problem for Google?
I just feel that Windows Mobile can do things that other phone OSs can only dream of and should be given credit for that. A bit of balance is called for.
I agree with your point that sales numbers aren’t worth quibbling (that’s a great word) over and I didn’t intend that comment to come across as a “mine is bogger than yours” type comment. I seem to have gotten my claim slightly wrong as well because the statistics I found relate to Q4 rather than 2008 as a whole (http://www.intomobile.com/2009/01/22/windows-mobile-smartphone-sales-trump-iphone-in-q4-2008.html). However, the point I was trying to make still stands – WinMo is far from dead and it would be wrong to suggest that it is. Even if WinMo was in worse condition, Palm are in the process of demonstrating that it’s possible to make a fairly impressive comeback.
I would like to see Microsoft become a lot more agile when it comes to development and releases but it’s important to remember that PPC/Windows Mobile users have always complained about the glacial rate of change. Just look at Microsoft’s reaction to the years of complaints about the fact that the X button doesn’t close an app. The final release of WinMo 6.5 is a long (probably too long) way off but hopefully Microsoft will use that time to address some of the main concerns that people have. I doubt it as this seems to be a placeholder for WinMo 7 but we can only hope.
Finally, it’s a real shame that Microsoft didn’t manage to squeeze the Zune/Xbox/WMC integration that everyone is hoping for into 6.5. I suspect they will wait for 7 to try and wow everyone when that’s released but it’s still a shame. In the meantime, 6.5 is a long way off and it isn’t fair to judge an alpha version of an OS based on some screenshots doing the rounds.
Jake, good commentary. (Probably your best here IMO
). In terms of Google, you might be able to apply the same logic and shortcomings, but at this point, I don’t think we can. It’s just too soon to say much about how this conversation applies to Android. The platform hasn’t been around for years like WinMo so in fairness, we need to give it some time to shake out. Let’s revisit in 6-12 months.
Yes, I agree that it may be too soon especially but you certainly can’t deny that the signs are there. I see today that Asus are even considering using Android on an EeePC which could potentially dilute Android’s brand even further.
I think it was a bit selfish of you and James to make use of the new Reply buttons first
Great new addition to the site guys.
Hmmm. The graph says 40% not impressed, yet your headline says 81% aren’t impressed?
Quite apart from that re-presenting of the data, I actually don’t think more features are the answer for MS. The mobile space is not the same as the desktop, and carriers certainly want more control over the phones they carry, customers want the ability to tailor their phones. Currently Windows Mobile is one of the very few OSes which aloows both to coexist. Windows Mobile should stick to its strength of flexibility and customizeability.
@ZSX
When you add up 40% “Not Impressed” and 41% “It’s OK, But Not Enough Progress For Me”, that’s a pretty high percentage of people who are disappointed with 6.5.
Frankly, I don’t know how anyone could look at 6.5 and be anymore impresses than they are with 6.1.
@ZSX: I believe the 81% is the bottom two choices of the survey, not impressed or just ok but not enough.
Yes, that’s where the 81% comes from which is accurate.
Putting “OK” together with “but not” in single option heavily distorts the poll outcome. This 40 percent can be counted either in favor or against WinMo (unfortunately, both assumptions being wrong).
However, this flawed pool does show the current problem with WinMo (not just 6.5) – the platform is both great and awful, depending on what area you are looking at. So much potential, so much freedom, so many problems…
Palm IIIx->Casio EM-500->Dell X5->Sprint Mogul (HTC Titan). I have been very happy with PocketPC/WM for my PDA needs but thing started coming apart when I got a connected device (Sprint Mogul). I do forgive the Mogul’s shortcomings as a phone because of all the amazing things I can do with it as a connected device. Its phenomenal…really. But somewhere along the line, having a connected device changed how I want to interact with the device. My Mogul has a great keyboard and that was a major selling point for me. But I rarely use it now opting instead for TouchPal as my finger friendly text input. I absolutely eschew the use of a stylus of any sort now…and I used to love my pen/sylus combo in my PDA days. I really do prefer finger based navigation now. Even a year ago I would have laughed in your face if asked to depend on finger based navigation but now I “get it”…I want it…I don’t think I am the only one either (witness the iPhone interface, the upcoming Palm Pre interface etc etc). Which brings me to WM 6.5. The new finger friendly shell on the home screen and basic menus indicates that MS “sees it” but I don’t think they “get it”. By all accounts scratching the surface of WM 6.5 reveals the same grim finger hating UI that dates back to Windows CE 1.0 for cripes sake. I could buy a shell program that does what I have seen in WM 6.5 so far…big deal! If they are not any further along with a new interface than what they have showed us with WM 6.5 then its a failure. If they can’t do something about this inside of 2009 then its an epic failure…not terminal but epic. Its immensely frustrating to me as a devoted WM user and it makes me want to leave the platform. All for the want of an improved UI…is it that hard?
i hear buddy.. sadly why i have my iphone. i grew up on a Palm IIIc, upgraded to a Compaq iPaq (and was tethering it back in 1999), then had a stint of sony phones and then got a tmobile mda.
the mda frustrated me so bad. i was finally able to get it to work but that involved me hacking a imate rom and then making my own custom ext rom (this should not be required to get a wm phone to work as it should).
wm needs to really step it up; microsoft has banked on the fact that the powerusers of the world love wm but lately the power users are getting sick of the full time job of maintaining a device.
i love HTC phones but loathe ‘their’ version of windows mobile. the touchflo ui looks great but performs like crap when i used on an HTC Touch.
anywho.. i’m just rambling and may be hating on Windows Mobile just because i have to support a device called the Treo 700W/700WX.
Hmm, slow news week guys? I mean, seriously, at least 3 articles just to tell us why Windows Mobile 6.5 has failed to impress? I know, I know, the Mobile conference has everyone buzzing about new mobile devices, but there has got to be more to talk about…
Like, how about an article mentioning Spb Mobile Shell 3.0 or Pointui Home 2 or I dunno any one of the 3rd party apps that bring useful touch-functionality to Windows Mobile? PocketInformant? Agenda One? What have these folks been doing lately for Windows Mobile (and others)?
still doesn’t fix the fundamental bottleneck of performance; Windows Mobile itself.
like others will say, just lipstick on a pig.
just my $.02
I hear you GT2L, but this was a follow-up to the poll. Point taken, though.
While I’m not impressed by Windows Mobile 6.5, I really didn’t expect to be. It was hailed as a “stopgap” update between 6.1 and 7.0. I could be wrong, but I believe the initial plan was to release Windows Mobile 7 soon, but that proved unfeasible due to delays. Windows Mobile 6.5 is thus the second “stopgap” release since the iPhone was released.
That more than anything else speaks to how seriously Microsoft is taking the smartphone market – I don’t think we would have seen this release pace before the iPhone. Nor would we have seen the support of custom UIs ala HTC. I wouldn’t be surprised if Windows Mobile 6.5 made it easier to skin the OS. Of course, it still “isn’t fast enough;” but we always want these things to be faster, and I’m willing to wait for Windows Mobiel 7.0 to see if they can accomplish a “decent comeback.”
In terms of 6.5, it’s a “good” update. The interface changes are sorely needed, and bring Windows Mobile into 2008 (if not 2009/2010). Does it go far enough? No, but we never expected it to.
Right now, I wouldn’t buy a Windows Mobile phone, because both the iPhone and Blackberry are more compelling. But Microsoft has shown a willingness to invest a lot of money in “strategic” targets, and I think mobile definitely qualifies. Microsoft, I think, doesn’t want to be the next IBM, and so is pouring money into areas that could marginilize it. Google shifted the focus to web search; Apple has expanded it to include mobile.
There’s nothing wrong with Windows Mobile itself, but rather with Microsoft’s efforts to keep up with the development of cloud computing and mobility in general.
People complain about Windows Mobile all the time, but most of them can’t even mention more than one reason why Windows Mobile ’sucks’ in their opinion. That’s because, as I said, there’s nothing wrong with Windows Mobile. Yes, it does lack smooth scrolling and pretty design, but that’s about it. The list of advantages is a lot longer.
So, what’s wrong with Microsoft (imho) and why am I looking forward to the 3rd gen iPhone?
I’t because of Microsoft’s ‘ecosystem’. MyPhone, Live Mesh, Foldershare, Skydrive, Windows Live Mobile… can you already notice the problem there?
Microsoft is wasting their time and energy creating more and more unfinished, redundant, hard to use, hard to understand products and services that are of no use for the consumer, because noone is able to figre out what the services actually do, which service to use and how to make it work.
Apple is delivering one useful, (almost) complete, easy to use service, MobileMe, that makes using the iPhone fun and delivers a whole new experience of cloud computing (especcially as a Mac user).
Google is delivering a useful, complete and easy to use set of services that integrate well with any mobile device, are easy to understand and easy to set up.
Microsoft delivers Windows Live for Mobile, which seems to be useful at first sight, but lacks essential features like calendar synchronization. Instead of going the logical way and completing the feature set of Windows Live, they release one more service, MyPhone, that backups anything but does not do synchronization. They’ve got Foldershare, Skydrive and Live Mesh and none of those redundant services delivers a complete set of features.
What a waste of time!
It’s not Windows Mobile itself that’s broken, it’s Microsoft, the company. Honestly, one should think that they must have learned how to structure and organize products and development after the Longhorn desaster. But they’ve learned nothing.
They do (struggle to) keep up with today’s developments. Windows Mobile and their services are competitive. But that’s not enough. As the biggest software company in the world whose name always stood for innovation in the past, keeping up with others is just not enough. I’m not disappointed about Windows Mobile, I’m disappointed about the company founded by a guy who always had great visions of the future, the company that fails to keep up with other people’s innovation though being ten times bigger that those other people’s companies.
I’ve been using WinMo since the days of the H6315. While I cannot say that WinMo is perfect, it does offer a lot of versatility, especially for the power users. MS is slow to churn out new versions, yes, but I see the problems also curse device manufacturers and service providers.
HTC phones are beautiful, but HTC refuses to sell in the US, even expansys gets all their HTC stuff from over the pond at prices that are outrageous. Can anyone justify $700+ for an unlocked Touch HD when a 32GB iPhone 3G sells for under $300. Or $650 for an unlocked Touch Pro when Sprint gives you almost the same device for $299.
I feel service providers also share part of the blame, especially here in the US, since you just cannot get a “vanilla” device from them that hasn’t been otherwise hacked, butchered or dumbed-down to work only on their network.
On a final note, T-Mobile for example still sells the aging Wing from HTC, a device that’s already been superseded by the tytn, tytn 2, touch pro and now the touch pro2. Can you really get what you want out of Windows Mobile when even the carriers are so lousy to refresh their product lines?
The one thing that no one has really commented on is the carriers and what they do or don’t do with the OS and related updates.
I have an ATT Tilt, HTC phone, and I switched to ATT to get this phone because Verizon, my former carrier took forever, to put out new phones and took forever to update the OS after an update was put out by the either Microsoft or phone manufacturer. The carriers then often take months to “test it on their networks” after the updated is released. If there is actually something worthwhile in a new update, the user has to go find a way to hack their phone to install the update because it will be months before the carriers roll it out to their customers. In some cases, the carriers don’t update the OS and force their customers to purchase new phones if they want the latest version of the OS.
So, it seems to me that Microsoft, the handset manufacturers, and the carriers need to find a better way to work together to get a new or updated OS on phones of the users faster.
Another aspect that people seem to forget is similar to their desktop ecosystem, Microsoft has to support a huge number of devices, legacy software, and developers.
People keep asking for some huge change but these same people will tear down Microsoft for incompatibility and other “atrocities”. So, it’s the same blessing/curse that MS has to deal with. Lots of choice and lots of headaches.
Personally, I’d love to see them start from scratch (even though it makes no business sense) because there are so many great hardware products on the WinMo side that just seem to be hampered by the clearly aging OS.
The whole platform just needs a major rethinking. A unified app store (a la Apple), an easy development process (a la Palm pre WebOS), open architecture (a la Android), and better application of the increasingly popular touch-type interfaces are all necessary for Microsoft to become relevant again. Here’s hoping for WinMo 7.
Only MS can bring out a font face so ugly and generic and still oblivious to how much it harms the presentation. They have lived in their bubble for so long they have forgotten what it means to be good looking.
Plus, the icons are still completely inconsistant and confusing in low-re.
The iPhone changed the game.
When I took out my Windows Mobile 2003 Smartphone to play some tracks on a camping trip after the batteries died out on the radio, people were blown away. They couldn’t believe at all the things it could do. Now all of them have an iPhone.
I’ve been using Windows CE since the days of the 1.0 on my Velo1. Now I have a hacked Tilt that I’ve set up to my liking but it’s still frustrating when things stop working. Now Microsoft is adding swipes and taps just for the sake of swiping. I want a d-pad and buttons and I want images that aren’t blurry when I browse the web. Everyone that wants an iPhone has an iPhone so stop trying to copy it. In fact, everyone I know that tried to deal with WinMo gave up with version 5. Why did it take until 6.1 to add message filtering and threaded sms?
I remember going through a friends photos on their iPhone. It turned out it was her Picasa Web Albums. The photos were full screen and would rotate to fill the screen just like local photos. The user experience is just fantastic. On WinMo, the pics are tiny and blurry and Microsoft’s own Live services don’t offer anything better.
I don’t see any compelling reason to upgrade to 6.5 devices and 7.0 is coming out in 2010 because they need the time to try to copy the best features of the iPhone, the Storm, and the Pre. I thought MS was trying to merge both platforms and make the touch devices more one hand friendly. Where are the d-pads on the new devices?